Fast and Furious Privilege Claim Exposed

[CitizenBBN]

For the first time we know the scope of documents the White House claims are covered by executive privilege. You know, correspondence between the President and his advisers necessarily not released to allow a President to get unfettered input and advice.

15,000 documents. The list of them alone is 1,300+ pages. It includes 20 emails between Holder and his wife.

Privilege is about communication with the President. They are claiming letters from congress, inter-agency communications, things that never got near the white House. It's absurd, insulting, beyond the pale.

Not surprising of course, but absurd and insulting. So much for "the most open Administration in history", here having the cajones to assert that nearly everything done by ATF in this matter must remain a secret from the People they serve.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/obama-c...-furious-docs/

[Doc]

First off, what the hell is Holder talking about national secrets with is wife for? This is actually something I am quite familiar with. When my wife was with the Dept of Defense (prior to going to the dept of justice which is where she works now) she hasd a top secret clearance, and we NEVER discussed her cases. At that time she was working on some developmental aspects of the Blackhawk helicopter (I don't know any of the specifics). When she went to the DOJ, the same thing occurred. In fact I was once selected for a jury on a child molestation case where the defendant was also being looked at federally for child pornography and my wife was working that case. During selection I was asked about that since the defense knew my wife worked for the DOJ. I truthfully told them I did not know what cases she worked and we did not discuss any of this. When the accused was found not guilty (I was an alternate juror and had no say in the verdict because the MFer was guilty as they come), the next day the feds arrested him for child pornography (that evidence was not admitted in the case we heard) and he ended up pleading guilty. He still is in jail. Anyway, I do not have clearance and because of that my wife would never discuss work related issues with me. To me that is pretty obvious. We have a Attorney General who doesn't understand that? We have an AG that would discussed such things with his wife? Really? Guess that doesn't surprise me because I have always thought that the guy was an idiot.

[dan_bgblue]

I agree with all of that, and wonder, on top of all the other stupidity by Holder, if his wife has a government secure email address or if it is yahoo.com

[UKHistory]

That is frightening the way this administration has exceeded its authority and stretched its executive power.

Every administration tries to extend the reach of the Imperial Presidency--heck Jefferson doubled the size of the country with the stroke of a pen. But the lack of experience and the disdain for liberty is worrisome.

I have no doubt spouses impact policy. But if Holder or anyone was writing to his or her spouse about policy issues, national security issues, etc we have a serious breach of security by the highest ranking law enforcement official in the country. I have a great concern about that.

And in related watch you say on-line and where you go on the internet. Even goofy or silly things can come back to haunt you.

[CitizenBBN]

That is frightening the way this administration has exceeded its authority and stretched its executive power.

Every administration tries to extend the reach of the Imperial Presidency--heck Jefferson doubled the size of the country with the stroke of a pen. But the lack of experience and the disdain for liberty is worrisome.

I have no doubt spouses impact policy. But if Holder or anyone was writing to his or her spouse about policy issues, national security issues, etc we have a serious breach of security by the highest ranking law enforcement official in the country. I have a great concern about that.

And in related watch you say on-line and where you go on the internet. Even goofy or silly things can come back to haunt you.

I like your Jefferson analogy a lot. I think the difference between them that is so insightful is that Jefferson agonized over that decision because he saw it as potentially overreaching his authority. He did it b/c he knew it was best for the nation but it wasn't done to hide the fact that he'd done anything, or cover up the terms of the treaty, etc. That's the big difference.

Lincoln took multiple actions during the Civil War that were unconstitutional, but they were demanded by the nature of war and they were public, well known acts. Even suspending habeus corpus and holding certain Copperheads essentially as civilian prisoners was at least not done without public scrutiny. They weren't abducted in black vans, everyone knew what he did, he signed a public order doing it.

Those are things done by men doing what they believe, right or wrong, is in the best interests of the nation regardless of what it does to their political position. What Obama has done is just going farther down the path of Nixon, where executive expansion is for the sake of staying in power, hiding their questionable or outright illicit actions, and quashing public knowledge.

I'm not saying Jefferson or Lincoln never considered politics, they did, and John Adams, one of the foremost framers of the Constitution itself, pushed through the Alien and Sedition Acts to suppress media opposition, but this "shadow government" behavior that has emerged in the post war American era is far more disturbing to me than these other unconstitutional, but very public, acts.

[CitizenBBN]

Doc - my mother to this day doesn't know what my father worked on at Fort Hood or in Korea. It's part of the gig.

I don't know if those emails were about F&F, but I do know that the thousand plus documents that never touched the President's desk are not covered by Executive Privilege in any way. Privilege covers the President so he can get unfettered advice. Hard for that to cover documents that never were written for him, that he didn't know existed and were never part of anything he did or decision he made.

These documents are all covered by the constitutionally established principle of congressional oversight of the implementation of its laws. Executive Privilege covers the PRESIDENT, not every administrative bureaucrat in the federal government.

[Doc]

I don't know if those emails were about F&F, but I do know that the thousand plus documents that never touched the President's desk are not covered by Executive Privilege in any way. Privilege covers the President so he can get unfettered advice. Hard for that to cover documents that never were written for him, that he didn't know existed and were never part of anything he did or decision he made.

No doubt that is correct and I suspect there isn't much in the e-mails between Holder and his wife. Just a blanket cover your ass thing from an open administration.

[KeithKSR]

No doubt that is correct and I suspect there isn't much in the e-mails between Holder and his wife. Just a blanket cover your ass thing from an open administration.

The stuff under the request is any document pertaining to F&F, in order for the emails to be under the list of things privilege is being claimed they then mention F&F.

[CitizenBBN]

DOJ released 60K pages today, on election day. No coincidence there, lol.

They are in one way very transparent. Any fool can see how petty, political and manipulative they are in everything they do from their prosecution of whistle blowers to their burying of documents to their decisions to let Americans die at the hands of terrorists.